Two weeks ago Green councillor Ben Duncan put in his application to be consigned to the dustbin of loony tunes who have thrown their careers away on the internet. Today, his party has finally obliged and booted him out. Lisa Murray, chairwoman of Brighton and Hove Green Party, says:

“The panel of inquiry has concluded that Councillor Ben Duncan should no longer serve as a member of the Green Group of Councillors on Brighton and Hove City Council.

This follows his recent statement on Twitter concerning the armed forces which understandably offended many both within and outside the party.

The panel concluded that since this recent incident follows a history of making comments in social media that many would view as inappropriate for someone in such a position, taken as a whole, Councillor Duncan’s actions amount to a breach of standards and judgement expected of a Green councillor, bringing himself and colleagues into disrepute.

Councillor Duncan’s removal from the Green Group is for the remaining council term.

From this point Councillor Duncan will not participate in votes or discussions in the Green Group or be involved in any decisions of the Group and will sit as an independent councillor and not be counted as a part of the Group.”

The Unite front group CLASS, despite their own gender failings, is devoted to furthering equal rights and women’s causes. So Guido was surprised to see them happily embrace such a controversial figure this afternoon.

Len McCluskey praises Piketty's book as a clarion call for challenging the status quo #PikettyClass

‘After the charges were dropped, the French news agency AFP quoted a source close to Ms Filippetti as saying: “Mr Piketty has acknowledged the facts of the violence against Ms Filippetti and has apologised, so in the interests of the families and children, she did not proceed.” When the allegations re-surfaced in the media at the weekend, Mr Piketty confirmed that he had been arrested but contested the claims.’

Instead MPs and activists lapped up the discredited Frenchman’s thoughts on why the 50% rate of tax is not high enough. That’s right, Labour are spending one of their precious few days before the next election discussing putting taxes up with an economist who beat up his ex-girlfriend.

Yasmin Qureshi, the Labour MP who earlier this year was forced to make a grovelling apology for comparing the Israel-Palestine conflict to the Holocaust, is in trouble for her extreme views once again. Yesterday, as the damning Ofsted evidence of Islamic extremism in Birmingham schools was starting to become clear, Qureshi tweeted that the story was a “witch hunt”. Today, the following tweet about Oldknow Academy’s school trips to Saudi Arabia, on which the Ofsted report found that non-Muslim pupils were banned from going, has mysteriously disappeared from her timeline:

All go to MMA cage fighting clubs which the teenagers were using on my son.

Without me using any profanity or threw any punches, the responsible adult/uncle ran back in the house to get a sharp metal weapon and came running from behind me and broke my cheekbone and broken eye socket. Extensive surgery this week needed including permanent metal plating.”

A police inquiry is ongoing but the victim is adamant that his UKIP connections were a motivating factor. If these reports are correct, those who have demonised UKIP share responsibility for this…

Labour MPs are queuing up this morning to voice their outrage at UKIP using a photo of the graves of war dead in their campaign material. For some reason they are however silent about this picture of a concentration camp tweeted by one of own their councillors, Mark Cherry, accompanying a tweet claiming “a vote for Tories in 2015 means more of the same”:

Chris Bryant was one of those itching to have a pop at UKIP over the cemetery poster. Guido has asked him if he condemns his own Labour councillor’s work, so far he has failed to do so. Wonder if this’ll make it onto the News at Ten…

UPDATE:Tory MP Tony Baldry has written to Ed Miliband:

“Councillor Cherry presumably thought this tweet was funny. However, you will see that it very clearly intends to depict Conservative Party policies on the unemployed and disabled as akin to being sent to a Nazi concentration camp. This is not in any way funny. It simply trivialises the horrors of the Holocaust.”

Eternally unhinged, freedom-hating, commie-loving, loony lefty John Pilger is off on one again in the Guardian today, rehashing everything he has ever written and blaming America and Britain for the situation in Ukraine:

“The US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders. In many cases Britain has been a collaborator… For the first time since the Reagan years, the US is threatening to take the world to war. With eastern Europe and the Balkans now military outposts of Nato, the last “buffer state” bordering Russia – Ukraine – is being torn apart by fascist forces unleashed by the US and the EU. We in the west are now backing neo-Nazis in a country where Ukrainian Nazis backed Hitler.”

Alrighty then. Unsurprisingly Pilger’s latest conspiracy theory is being widely mocked by all quarters, including the Guardian’s own Moscow correspondent:

I know it's in my paper, but on a reread, Pilger piece inexcusable. Especially quoting "doctor" who appears to have been completely fake.

Labour MP Chris Williamson today praised the Venezuelan government at a pro-regime rally in London, despite the widespread human rights abuses committed by President Maduro’s administration. Williamson expressed his support for Venezuela’s “democratically elected government”, endorsed their economic record and said he was “celebrating Hugo Chavez’s legacy”.

Human rights organisation Amnesty International yesterday reported that government forces had detained 243 protesters this week, warning that “they are risk of torture or other ill-treatment”. Amnesty finds that the socialist government’s “security forces have resorted to the excessive use of force, including the use of live fire, and even torture when dealing with protesters”. 2,157 have been arrested, 37 people have been killed and more than 550 have been injured. Amnesty accuse the government of a “politically motivated attempt to silence dissent in the country”. The regime has also begun to ration food, water and electricity as its economy falls apart.

Williamson refused to condemn the human rights abuses reported by Amnesty when approached by Guido. Makes you wonder what people would say if he were a UKIP member, rather than merely a sitting Labour MP…

The unrivalled commissioning editors at Comment is Free have graced their readers with an open letter from children’s novelist and poet Michael Rosen to Sajid Javid. Rosen’s main point is that because Javid used to be a banker he is […]

One for someone in the Lobby to ask during their lunch with Len McCluskey today. Unite assistant general secretary and policy chief Steve Turner has, somewhat unfortunately, been caught on tape calling for the murder of the 85 richest people […]

Quote of the Day

“I read more bloggers now than mainstream columnists, because they’ve got more interesting things to say. Too many columnists today make you think, ‘Yeah, I think you’ve said that 10 times before and I’ve just noticed your column has not go a single fact in it’”.